Chapter 6 - Occupational Hazard
By Monday morning, Adrian Vale was an asshole again.
Thank God.
For a few deeply concerning days, my brain had apparently forgotten.
It had gotten distracted by rolled sleeves and crooked tattoos and black coffee and the discovery that Adrian possessed something resembling a sense of humor.
That problem corrected itself at 9:12 Monday morning.
"Do it again."
I stared at him.
Then at the drawings on his desk.
Then back at him.
"Good morning to you too."
His expression didn't change.
"Do it again, Ms. Stone."
There he was.
My asshole had returned.
"What exactly am I doing again?"
"The entrance sequence."
"All of it?"
"Yes."
I looked down at the drawings I'd spent most of Friday afternoon revising.
"What's wrong with it?"
"The proportions are off."
"Where?"
He leaned back in his chair.
"If I have to identify every problem for you, I might as well do it myself."
I blinked.
There were several responses available to me.
Most would probably affect my employment.
I chose the safest one.
"That's very constructive."
His eyes lifted.
Deep blue.
Completely unimpressed.
"Would you prefer constructive feedback or an approved design?"
"I was hoping for both."
"You're ambitious."
I gathered the drawings.
"You used to be more fun at night."
Silence.
Oh.
Fuck.
Why had I said that?
Adrian's eyes settled on me.
Slowly.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"That didn't sound like nothing."
"I meant you're less-"
I stopped.
"Less what?"
Asshole.
Obviously I couldn't say asshole.
"Intense."
One eyebrow lifted.
"That isn't what you were going to say."
"No."
"What were you going to say?"
"Something professionally inadvisable."
"I'm shocked you stopped yourself."
I smiled sweetly.
"Growth."
"Redo the entrance."
And there it was again.
The urge to throw something at him.
Comforting, really.
I turned toward the door.
"Ms. Stone."
I looked back.
"By three."
My mouth fell open.
"Three?"
"Yes."
"It is nine fifteen."
"I'm aware of how clocks work."
"Are you?"
His stare sharpened.
I left before my career ended.
"He's back," I announced.
Maya didn't look up from her monitor.
"Who?"
"The demon."
Ben looked over the divider.
"Vale?"
"Full strength."
"Good."
I stared at him.
"Good?"
"You've been weird."
"I have not been weird."
"You've been defending him."
"I have never defended Adrian Vale in my life."
Maya turned around.
"Friday you said, and I quote, 'He's actually not that bad when he's tired.'"
"That was an observation."
"You also said he can be funny."
"I said he made one joke."
"You said two."
I frowned.
Had I?
Ben pointed at me.
"See?"
"See what?"
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"Thinking about him."
"I am thinking about murdering him."
"Still thinking."
I picked up a pen.
Ben disappeared behind the divider.
Coward.
I turned to Maya.
"He just gave me six hours to redo an entire entrance sequence."
"Five hours and forty-five minutes."
"Whose side are you on?"
"Yours."
"Didn't sound like it."
She smiled.
"I just enjoy accuracy."
I turned back to my computer.
Everything was normal again.
Adrian was rude.
I disliked him.
He apparently disliked me.
The natural order had been restored.
Excellent.
At 1:37, I was still working.
At 1:52, I was reconsidering every decision that had led me to architecture.
At 2:06, Adrian appeared beside my desk.
No warning.
No greeting.
Just-
"Show me."
I looked up.
"You know, normal people usually start with hello."
"Show me, Ms. Stone."
"Good afternoon, Mr. Vale."
His jaw shifted.
I smiled.
Tiny victories.
I rotated my monitor toward him.
He stepped around my chair.
And leaned down.
That was the exact moment my afternoon became unnecessarily complicated.
Cedar.
Warm.
Dark.
Expensive.
I knew that smell.
Apparently I knew it very well now.
Which was information I did not particularly want about my boss.
Adrian planted one hand on the edge of my desk and leaned closer to the screen.
His shoulder was beside mine.
Very beside mine.
As in approximately zero useful inches of professional space.
The heat from his body reached my bare arm.
I went completely still.
"Move this."
His voice came from somewhere near my ear.
I swallowed.
"What?"
"This."
He reached across me.
His arm passed in front of my chest as he pointed at the screen.
Not touching me.
Not even close enough to count as touching me.
But close enough that the warmth of him seemed to settle against my skin anyway.
I stared at the screen.
There was something on it.
Probably architecture.
Potentially important.
My brain had left.
"Angelica."
My eyes snapped toward him.
Mistake.
His face was right there.
Not right there right there.
But considerably more right there than I preferred.
Deep blue eyes.
Dark lashes.
That stupid sharp jaw.
A few strands of dark hair had fallen slightly forward.
And the scent of cedar was stronger this close.
I immediately looked back at the screen.
"Yes."
"Are you listening?"
"Obviously."
"What did I just say?"
Fuck.
"That you want this moved."
"Where?"
Silence.
He waited.
I pointed vaguely.
"There."
His eyes followed my finger.
Then returned to me.
"No."
"I knew that."
"Clearly."
He leaned closer and pointed again.
"This column. Shift it approximately eighteen inches. It'll open the sightline without changing the circulation."
"Oh."
I looked properly this time.
He was right.
Annoyingly.
"That actually works."
"I know."
"God, you're humble."
"I've never claimed to be."
He straightened.
The warmth disappeared.
So did the cologne.
I breathed normally again.
Adrian looked at me for another second.
Then walked away.
Nothing had happened.
Literally nothing.
My boss had looked at a drawing.
That was it.
Apparently someone needed to explain that to my nervous system.
At 3:04, I delivered the revisions.
He approved them.
At 3:05, he gave me something else to do.
Asshole.
At 4:20, he interrupted me during a conversation with Nicole because he needed a clarification that absolutely could have been sent in an email.
At 4:47, he rejected a material option with the deeply useful explanation:
"No."
At 5:02, he walked past my desk without looking at me.
And for some completely inexplicable reason, I smelled cedar after he passed.
I hated that.
Not the smell.
The fact that I noticed it.
I had smelled that cologne dozens of times before.
Probably.
I assumed.
He'd been walking around this office for the entire year I'd worked here.
So why the hell was my brain suddenly cataloguing it?
I shut down my computer.
Not my problem.
That evening, I was on my couch eating cereal for dinner when I thought about the tattoo.
I don't know why.
I was watching television.
Nothing about the television involved tattoos.
Or houses.
Or architects.
Or emotionally constipated CEOs.
And yet-
Crooked roof.
Uneven wall.
Tiny chimney.
Who drew it?
Adrian hadn't answered.
Which, naturally, made me more curious.
I picked up my phone.
Not because of Adrian.
I was already holding my phone.
Technically.
I opened Instagram.
Again-not because of Adrian.
People opened Instagram every day.
Millions of people.
Possibly billions.
I tapped the search bar.
My thumb hovered.
This was stupid.
I typed:
Several accounts appeared.
None of them were him.
I added:
Nothing.
Still nothing.
Of course.
The man probably considered Instagram a moral failure.
I tried Facebook.
Nothing useful.
Then X.
Nothing.
I stared at my phone.
Why was I doing this?
I wasn't interested in him.
I was curious.
Those were different things.
Very different.
Curiosity was normal.
Healthy, even.
Scientists were curious.
Architects were curious.
Human civilization had been built on curiosity.
This was practically intellectual development.
I Googled his name.
That was better.
Professional.
Vale Architecture appeared immediately.
Then articles.
Projects.
Awards.
Interviews.
And-
LinkedIn.
I hesitated.
Then tapped it.
His face appeared.
Of course his LinkedIn photo looked exactly like I expected.
Dark suit.
White shirt.
No smile.
Deep blue eyes looking directly at the camera like whoever had taken the photograph had personally disappointed him.
I snorted.
"Of course."
Founder and CEO.
Vale Architecture.
Architect.
Miami, Florida.
I scrolled.
There was more than I'd expected.
Past firms.
Projects.
Professional organizations.
Awards.
Several publications and features.
A list of accomplishments that was irritatingly long.
I frowned.
I knew Adrian was successful.
Obviously.
The company had his name on the fucking building.
But knowing someone was successful and seeing the entire path laid out in front of you were different things.
I reached his education section.
Bachelor of Architecture.
I blinked.
Okay.
That was irritating.
I scrolled.
Master of Architecture II.
I sat up.
"Oh, come on."
Of fucking course.
Apparently being six feet tall, ridiculously handsome, obscenely successful, and professionally terrifying hadn't been enough.
The universe had also decided to make the asshole brilliant.
Greedy.
I tapped one of the schools.
Then went back.
Scrolled again.
There was an award from several years earlier.
I Googled it.
Then one of his older projects.
Then an interview about Vale Architecture.
Then another article.
At some point I realized I had been reading about Adrian Vale for nearly twenty minutes.
I froze.
My cereal had gone soggy.
I looked at my phone.
Then at the television.
Then back at my phone.
"What the fuck am I doing?"
I closed everything.
Put my phone facedown.
And watched television with tremendous concentration.
For approximately seven minutes.
Then I wondered again who had drawn the house.
I refused to pick up my phone.
Tuesday morning, I'd successfully forgotten the entire thing.
Mostly.